Gothic Literature Themes

“Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.” Poe believed that a story had to have the reality of horror with in. All of his stories had gothic horror in them. Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories, “The Black Cat” and “The Masque of the Red Death” are good examples of gothic literature because they involve paranormal activity, insane characters, and terrifying deaths.

Gothic Literature is characterized by elements of fear, horror, death, and gloom, as well as romantic elements, such as nature, individuality, and high

Gothic literature was a popular writing tradition of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and is still used today. Gothic literature explores the wicked, perverse and dark desires. Gothic conventions can include burial alive, ghosts, hysteria, ruined bodies, tales within tales, undead characters, underground spaces, and more. Gothic themes are guilt, sex, violence, death, and cosmic struggle. Gothic stories or poems should inspire terror or horror. Edgar Allen Poe was one of the many well-known Gothic writers. In his stories he uses a variety of themes to carry out the gothic theme.

Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher is a good example of Gothic Literature because of the characters in psychological and physical torment. For example, in Poe’s story, “The writer spoke of acute bodily illness-of a mental disorder which oppressed him-and of an earnest desire to see me,” (Poe 2). Roderick, being the writer, wrote to the narrator to come visit him because he is

Although Gothic Elements can be very sadistic and twisted the use of it is seen in all types of stories. Some of the more famous stories that Gothic Elements are used in are the following “ A Rose for Emily,” “ The Minister’s Black Veil,” and “ The Tell- Tale Heart”. In these stories, gothic elements are found all over the place do you know why? Well the reason is that all these stories are darker stories than most. Gothic Elements are needed to make a superb scary story.

Gothic literature usually brings to mind Edgar Allen Poe and dark foggy London streets but that's not all gothic literature is. Gothic literature usually has themes of mystery and eerie settings or characters. Themes such as physical and mental decay and isolation, abandonment, and entrapment are very prominent in Prey by Richard Matheson, The Feather Pillow by Horacio Quiroga and The Black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe.

In the Gothic stories The Black Cat, Prey, and The Devil and Tom Walker all have similar themes. These short story themes all intertwine with each other in some for or fashion. For example, all three stories use violence and Entrapment as a common theme in order to convey a certain message.

Gothic literature has been criticized as being a dreary, dark, and death-involving subset of Romanticism (a literary movement accentuating human individuality, imagination, and subjectivity). In addition, gothic lit incorporates several themes- not all about deathly acts - but includes some emotional and surprising themes such as dreams, nightmares, or hallucinations, and grotesque or bizarre occurrences. Two short stories, both written by Edgar Allan Poe, entitled “The Raven,” and “The Black Cat,” as well as the novel The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern, all encompass these gothic elements, found throughout each story.

Have you ever read a story filled with horror, death, and a little romance? In literature, stories with these characteristics are classified as gothic literature. For example "A Rose For Emily" by Emily Faulkner is Southern gothic literature as the setting is specific to the south while "The Cast of Amontillado" by Edgar Allen Poe is gothic literature. In "A Rose for Emily", Emily and the community are stuck in the old ways of the South as they attempt to avoid the inevitable changes happening around them. In the end, Emily dies and the community is shocked to find her lovers body laying in her room. On the other hand, "The Cast of Amontillado" focuses on the protagonist revenge plot and death of the antagonist. An analysis of Poe 's and

Gothic literature has a different way of captivating the reader. Page by Page, gothic themes are present that create mystery and evoke suspense. The Night Circus, a novel by Eric Morgenstern, “The Devil and Tom Walker”, by Washington Irving, and “The Oval Portrait”, by Edgar Allan Poe share two important themes: eerie setting and isolation. All the stories connect through a lesson that passion can become harmful.

The gothic literary movement is a part of the larger Romantic Movement. Gothic literature shares many of the traits of romanticism, such as the emphasis on emotions and the imagination. Gothic literature goes beyond the melancholy evident in most romantic works, however, and enters into the areas of horror and decay, becoming preoccupied with death. “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe is a powerful example of gothic fiction, whereas James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans serves as the romantic predecessor, illustrating the differences and the similarities between romantic and gothic literature.

“The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe is a fantastic short story, but how does it fit into literature? The story uses elements and techniques that delve into the gothic genre and allows the reader to be introduced to a darker reality. In “The Tell Tale Heart”, gothic elements reveal themselves in the short story through the use of setting and also through the use of characterization. These two elements are key components which demonstrate gothic features and help to classify this story as gothic literature. Murder and the supernatural elements also show that this text can be considered within the gothic genre of literature.

The meaning of the term gothic literature has changed over the years. While many people today associate gothic with horror, the word actually refers to stories that fuse together elements of both horror and romanticism. It has been stated that "gothic writers have always held the colonial fringes to be particularly potent sources of horror for the English imagination, particularly those areas deemed part of the Celtic world" (Killeen). Gothic literature is usually associated with a dark, gloomy setting, such as a haunted house or castle. Often, there is a supernatural being such as a ghost, vampire, or zombie along with a curse or prophecy tied to the story's setting. Earlier depictions of gothic literature also tended to weave a romantic element between the male lead character and a damsel in distress into the story. Modern gothic literature puts a spin on these traditional ideas of storytelling. "The Gothic, in other words, mutates across historical, national, and generic boundaries as it reworks images drawn from different ages and places" (Smith).

Gothic writing will forever go down in history as one of the most popular forms of literature. When people talk about the genre, they remember Edgar Allan Poe among the famous authors who began shocking the world with their tales of murder, crime, suspense, betrayal. Poe was most known for giving his villainous characters more of a sinister, ruthless, and conservative approach. Some having more simplicity than others, making his stories more thrilling to his readers. The question many of his readers had after reading his stories was the curiosity of what could have possibly influenced Poe to create these intense stories and why the characters were so simple yet gruesome.

Gothic literature began and was very strong at the time of the Romantic Writers Movement. Gothic novels share common characteristics that contribute to the overall feeling of the novel. Most Gothic novels involve a setting that typically added mystery and suspense. The novel usually took place in a castle-like structure that was dark, scary, and isolated (Examine). In addition, the story enveloped omens or visions, supernatural or inexplicable events, overwrought emotion, women in distress, and a tyrannical male (Elements). Both Charlotte and Emily Bronte wrote gothic novels that used many of these characteristics, but their novels also transcended the boundaries of the genre. The novels Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre follow the gothic tradition in regards to setting, atmosphere, and supernatural events. However, both novels break from tradition in the matters of feminism and heroines.